Following in Abraham Lincoln's steps once more, President-elect Barack Obama is planning to travel by train to Washington ahead of his inaugural next month -- starting in Philadelphia, where Lincoln delivered an address while en route to the District from Springfield, Ill., in 1861.

Obama and his family will ride a special charter train, an inaugural spokeswoman said. From Philadelphia, they will make a journey familiar to commuters along the Northeast corridor: riding to Wilmington, to pick up Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his family; then on to Baltimore, for another event. Obama's trip will take place on a single day -- Saturday, Jan. 17 -- and wind up in Washington that night, making for a less arduous journey than the multiweek trip Lincoln took in February of 1861 (and which included, along the way, news of the infamous "Baltimore Plot" to assassinate him en route).

It is unclear where Obama will be immediately before Philadelphia, or what events he will hold in the cities along the way, although he is expected to be living in Washington already by that time.

"As part of the most open and accessible Inauguration in history, we hope to include as many Americans as possible who wish to participate, but can't be in Washington," Emmett S. Beliveau, executive director of the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee, said in a statement. "These events will allow us to do that while honoring the rich history and tradition of previous inaugural journeys."

In the case of the 1993 train taking Bill Clinton I tried for a photograph from the second floor of a building overlooking a crossing south of Baltimore, and had the police accosting me in short order.